Denial (11 page)

"Let's see... A bike.  A crate of oranges.  More street signs than I could find places to hide.  A stereo.  A forklift, once, when I was about your age."

"You grabbed a forklift?"

"I didn't want it.  I mean:  What the hell was I going to do with a forklift, right?  But I wanted
something
.  I just couldn't figure out what it was."

He nodded.  "It's like being hungry, but it don't go away when you eat."

"It only gets worse."

Having presented my bona fides as a thief, I went on meeting twice a week with Billy for a little less than a year — about a hundred hours tossing a football around my office, talking about loneliness and fear and rage, splitting enormous cheese steaks at Sunrise Subs down the street.  Then his sentence was up.  He was scheduled to join another foster family — the Worths — out in the western part of the state.

"Too bad I can't live with you," he said, chuckling.

I had thought of that possibility, but not seriously.  It would have raised concerns at the Department of Youth Services about my ‘clinical boundaries.’   More important, it would have meant giving up the independence I loved.  "You're going to do fine," I told him.

Within two months Billy was drinking heavily again.  His ‘family’ was talking about getting rid of him.  He called and asked me to visit, but I told him I didn't want to interfere with him and the Worths working things out.  "You hang in there, and I'll give you a call in a few days," I said.

He was sobbing.

"OK?"

"OK," he managed.

The next day Anne Sacon, a Department of Youth Services case manager, called me at the office.  "Dr. Clevenger," she said, "I have bad news about Billy."

I figured he'd stolen another car and been locked up.  Part of me welcomed the chance to work with him again.  "Where's Billy the Kid now?  Maximum Security?" I asked.

She exhaled audibly.  "Billy's dead.  He killed himself."

"Killed himself?"

"Mr. Worth found him in the garage.  He used a rope and one of the beams."

"When?"

"Early morning."

"What happened?  Did he leave a note?"

"It was eerie," she said.  "It said, ‘Hang in there.’"

I was trembling.

"Are you there?"

"OK," I said.

"Since you two already terminated, we'll finish all the paperwork, including the incident report."

What a strange word for saying goodbye to Billy, I thought —
terminate
.  "Is there anyone else to contact?"

"He didn't really have anyone else."

After we hung up, I thought how Billy had never really had me, either.  I'd been available, for a fee, two hours a week.  When push came to shove, and he'd needed a real father, I hadn't been able to do any better for him than my own father had for me.  Not even when he'd reached the end of his rope.  I hadn't even heard the final desperation that must have been in his voice the day he called.

I worried more and more that I was a dabbler in life stories, rather than a student of them, that I would skim over another critical page.  Three months after Billy died, I terminated with the rest of my patients and closed up my psychotherapy practice.

A couple of BMWs were traveling side by side down the two eastbound lanes of Storrow Drive, like a moving roadblock.  I tailgated in the passing lane, but got nowhere.  I leaned over for a clearer view, veered all the way into the breakdown lane and whipped in front of them.

I had hoped forensic work would be more about facts than feelings, more about the evidence than about me.  It wasn't turning out that way.  Something inside me kept blinding me to the destructiveness in people — in Prescott, and now in Westmoreland.

I sped through a yellow light  at Bell Circle in Revere and tried to cut across two lanes to make the entrance to Route 1A.  When I turned the wheel, the car kept going straight.  "Christ," I muttered.  "Not now."  I steered into the skid and pumped the brakes.  Just as I felt rubber grabbing the road, an old, red Mustang tried to slip past me.  I flipped into low gear and pumped faster.  I managed to miss the driver's side door but smashed into his rear quarter panel.

I got the Rover back in control and kept driving around the rotary.  Part of me wanted to race toward Boston.  My insurance had been canceled for nonpayment, and I had six delinquent parking tickets in the glove compartment.  If the police got involved, they'd boot my car and confiscate my license.  I checked my rearview mirror and saw the Mustang pulling into a Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot off the rotary.  I shook my head.  The last thing I needed was a hit-and-run on my record.  I finished the lap, swung into the lot and parked between two other cars.

The driver of the Mustang, a short, stocky kid about twenty, was pacing in front of the dent, holding his head in his hands.  I walked over and looked at the car.  The rear quarter panel and taillight were crushed, a hubcap was mangled and the bumper was dented and hanging loose.

He glared at me.  He was pulling nervously at his Grateful Dead T-shirt.  "You stupid sack of shit!" he spewed.

The best way to exhaust someone's rage is to run ahead of it.  "What an asshole I am!" I sputtered.  "What was I thinking?"

He glanced back at me.  "Damn," he said, almost calmly.  He paced a little, then started in, again.  "How goddamn fast—"

"I'm such a shithead, I can't believe it."  I looked around to make sure no cops were driving by.  "What is this, a ’67?"

"Sixty-four and a half."

Just my luck, crashing into a classic.  "Perfect condition."

"Until now, you mother—"

"I can't fucking believe what I did."

"I drove to Vermont to get that hubcap," he said, his voice cracking.  He shook his head.  He was winding down.  "Let's exchange everything and get this over with."

I didn't want to exchange anything.  "Why don't I take care of it so we don't have to get insurance companies involved."

"Take care of it?"

"The repair."  I took the wad of hundreds from Wonderland out of my pocket.  "How much do you think is fair?"

He looked at the money.  "I'm not sure about this.  I think we should do this the regular way."

"The regular way?  With a 64½ ?"  I walked around to the back of his car to check his license plate.  "You don't even have this registered as a classic.  The insurance company will never ante up for original parts."

He looked back at his stomach.  "The taillight alone goes four, five hundred, if you can find it."

"You'll find it.  Let's say fifteen hundred, total."

"Like I told you, the light's five by itself.  I got no idea about the bumper, let alone the panel.  There could be axle damage."

I thought about bringing up the fact that his license plate also carried a code for people who are supposed to be wearing glasses when they drive — which he wasn't — but I couldn't afford to piss him off.  "So what's fair?"

"I don't know.  Twenty-five, at least."

"Twenty-five?"  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a police cruiser entering the rotary.  You can't stay ten minutes at a Dunkin’ Donuts without a cop turning up.  "Done," I said.  I started counting.

The kid took my cash, and I dragged myself back to the Rover.  The right front corner was flattened, and the fog light was ripped off.  It would probably cost a grand to fix — money I didn't have.  I pulled myself inside, picked up the phone and dialed Stonehill Hospital.  The operator put me on hold while she paged Kathy.

"Dr. Singleton," she answered.

As soon as I heard her voice, I knew I wouldn’t be getting the comfort I longed for, but I stayed on the line.  I wasn't willing yet to admit who alone in the world I really was.  "Kathy, Frank," I managed.

No response.

My throat tightened.  "I, uh..."  I took a deep breath.

"What's wrong?  Where are you?"

"Dunkin’ Donuts."

"What's wrong, no honey-dipped?"

I forced myself to chuckle.  "I had an accident with the car.  That's all.  I stopped here."

"Are you hurt?"

"No."  I took a deep breath.

"You're shaken up?"

"I'm fine," I lied.

"Frank.  I've got three minutes before my next OR case.  Why, exactly, did you page me?"

"I've been telling Emma Hancock she's got the wrong man, and now it looks like the guy might have done it."

"Well, he's still locked up, right?  It's not like you let him go."

"He's locked up."

"I hope they—"

"I know.  I know you do.  The trouble is the evidence still doesn't make sense to me.  And even if Westmoreland's guilty, that doesn't mean he's rational enough to confess.  He's out in the stratosphere.  If they'd let me give him one of the new antipsychotics, like Clozaril, he might have more to say."

"You'd go out of your way to give Sarah's murderer a hand?"

"He was abused half his life."

"Abused how?"

"Beaten."

"Spare me.  Another killer as victim."

"I haven't met any killer yet who wasn't."

"Even Marcus Prescott?"

My stomach fell.  "Why are you—"

"Even him?"

I closed my eyes.  "Yes.  Even Prescott."

"You know what?  If you want to go on painting yourself as some sort of messiah to psychopaths, that's your business.  But don't screw up Sarah's case over it. 
She's
the victim.  She paused.  "The truth is, Westmoreland is just another of your addictions."

"Huh?"

"I don't think it much matters to you.  Coke, booze, girls, the occasional mind-fuck with a patient.  Me, when everything else runs out."

"You're not an addiction.  Neither is Westmoreland."

"Oh, thank you.  I'm in good company.  Listen to me:  You need to get yourself to a detox."

"I have to see this through."

"You're too polluted to be of any use to anyone — the police included."

"I don't know.  The facts don't add up.  I can't say it's the coke."

"Then you'll have to learn the hard way.  Hitting bottom.  Just don't expect me to pick up the pieces.  I'm sick of playing second fiddle to your crazies."

"You really think I should go to another detox?  Now?"

"I've said what I think."

"I can stop on my own."

She laughed.  "‘The drug's not the problem.  I can stop on my own.’  You sound like a junkie."

I did sound like a junkie.  I let all my breath out.  "I'll think about admitting myself to McLean."

"Don't think too long."  She hung up.

I sat there a few minutes, planning my next move.  I didn't think I'd be able to sit in therapy groups at McLean and pay attention while bankers started to foreclose on my house and repossess my car.  I drove over to my mother's apartment building.  I had to press the intercom button on the directory five times before she answered.

"Hello?" she sang.  Her voice sounded tinny and distant.

"It's Frank."  I stood there with my hand on the door, waiting for the lock to click open.

"Oh."

"The door isn't clicking open."

"Are you here for money again?"

I didn't have the energy to lie.  And I didn't have the courage to tell her I needed much more than money from her.  Things she'd never been able to give.  "The three hundred you gave me doesn’t really make a dent.  I've got a mortgage and—"

"Kathy told me to expect another demand for cash."

"Let me in."

"No."

I let out all my breath and leaned on the wall to get my mouth closer to the speaker.  "You can send checks directly to the finance companies, if you want.  I'm in trouble.  I could lose everything."

"You always take the easy way out of trouble, Frank.  That's the problem."

Funny.  I didn't remember taking the easy way out of any beatings from my father while she was locked in her bedroom.

"Kathy says I have to stop being one of your... I forget what she called it.  Disablers?"

I smiled in spite of myself.  "
Enablers
, not disablers.  And the only thing you'd be enabling me to do is keep a roof over my head and wheels under my ass."

"Well, I'm sorry.  I have to be firm."

"You won't help me."

"Not with money."

"Not even, say, a thousand?"

"No."

"Five hundred?"

"Not a dime."

I leaned to get my mouth even closer to the speaker.  But what I had to say was vulgar and venomous and, though I hated the woman at that moment, I couldn’t bring myself to say it.  I walked out of the lobby.

*            *            *

I didn't get home until dusk had draped the house in shadows.  The phone was ringing.  I let my machine answer.

"Hellooo.  You there?  Pick up!"

I grabbed the cordless from the end table in the living room and collapsed onto the couch.  "Paulson."

"Screening your calls.  What are you?  Paranoid?"

"Absolutely."

"I guess not paranoid enough..."

I reached for a Marlboro from  a tiger's eye box on the coffee table.  "Meaning?"

"Malloy tells me they shook you off the case.  Actually, he said, ‘That cocksucker shrink got canned."

I lit up.  "
Cocksucker
and
canned
in one sentence, huh?  It's looking more and more like his rage stems from repressed homosexuality."

"I'd like to go searching for that with a scalpel."

"His baton might be more effective."

"I'll try anything once."  He paused.  "You really off the case?"

"Sounds that way.  Hancock and I went at each other badly this morning."

"Maybe she'll cool off."

"It doesn't much matter now.  She only gave me thirty-six hours to work with Westmoreland.  Even if she stuck to the deal, I'd be almost out of time."

"I hear Fitzgerald found Westmoreland competent to confess — and to stand trial."

"Naturally.  He's bought and paid for."  I looked out the window at the ocean.  There was just enough sunlight left to make out the spray of waves as they crashed against the seawall.  "I'm not sure I was seeing the case clearly myself."

"It's not my call, but maybe you got too close, too fast."  He paused. "Did you really slice your wrist to get Westmoreland to stop biting himself?"